This article was published in March of this year. I only came across it recently. https://montrealgazette.com/opinion...oes-drinking-milk-increase-breast-cancer-risk Is milk protective against breast cancer or does it cause it? Depends on which study you read. The latest volley in this battle was fired by researchers from Loma Linda University who concluded that even small amounts of milk, as little as one-third of a cup a day, can significantly raise the risk of breast cancer. This was not some haphazard study. It involved following some 53,000 women who were initially free of breast cancer for eight years. Food frequency questionnaires were filled out at the beginning of the study, and a smaller contingent also periodically filled out 24 hour recall questionnaires that seemed to validate that the whole cohort did not make major dietary changes over the trial period. Eventually, 1,057 cases of breast cancer were diagnosed and the likelihood of diagnosis increased with increased milk consumption. When the numbers were crunched, the researchers concluded that if 100 women who drink no milk would start drinking one-third of a cup a day, about 20 would eventually be diagnosed with cancer. That is a worrisome statistic. The subjects were all Seventh Day Adventists, with a large subset consuming either no dairy or little dairy, thereby providing a significant group for comparison with the milk drinkers. Soy products were also frequently consumed in this population and were not associated with breast cancer. Substituting these for milk actually offered protection against the disease. Cheese and yogurt were not associated with breast cancer. The researchers suggested several possible reasons why milk can increase the risk of the disease. Since the lactating cows are usually pregnant, they secrete estrogen and progesterone in the milk and these may play a role in stimulating cell proliferation. Milk also contains insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), a protein that some studies have implicated as a possible stimulant of cancer cells. There is no question that this study was well done. But — and there is always a but, isn’t there? — just a few keystrokes can bring up other studies that also seem to be equally well done but come to the opposite conclusion. In 2015, Chinese researchers analyzed 22 prospective studies involving over 1.5 million subjects and five case-control studies with a total of 33,000 subjects and found that when the results were pooled, high and modest milk consumption significantly reduced the risk of breast cancer compared with low dairy consumption. A possible rationale was a protective effect due to calcium. Then in 2019, another meta-analysis of case-control studies, published in the journal Medicine, found no association between milk consumption and breast cancer. So what do we make of these battling studies? Basically, that nutritional research, even if well carried out, cannot account for all confounders and rarely comes to a conclusion that can’t be debated. This is the case not only for dairy consumption, but for such things as artificial sweeteners, saturated fats, dietary supplements, processed meats and organic foods. In this instance, the study subjects were Seventh Day Adventists whose lifestyle is significantly different from the general population. They eat a mostly plant-based diet, shun junk food and drink no alcohol. Obesity is virtually unknown. Since both alcohol consumption and obesity are associated with breast cancer, it is possible that elimination of these allows the milk connection to be revealed. Also, the high milk consumers were likely to also eat more meat and fewer plant products. Because of possible confounders, no observational study can prove cause and effect. Still, the Loma Linda study does ring some alarm bells. It certainly calls into question the wisdom of the common recommendation that consumers drink three glasses of milk a day. It is also noteworthy that breast cancer rates in Japan have increased significantly with an increase in milk consumption since the Second World War. Taking everything into account, the link between milk consumption and breast cancer cannot be dismissed.
Most of the hormones found in milk reside in the fat. Therefore, skim milk sidesteps some of that concern: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/posts/4802535/
Maybe yes with skim milk according to http://notmilk.com/b.html and https://www.nature.com/articles/1601948